This says it all. I don’t understand how Newt has supporters. If you want to explain it, I’m all ears.
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Newt’s Family Values
Posted in Congress, Election, House, politics, Presidential politics, Republican
Tagged Congress, newt, Newt Gingrich, politics, presidential race, Republican. Family Values
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Comparing the Senate and House versions of the Payroll Tax Bill
[Added in edit] On Friday, December 23, one day later, this all came to an end.
| 10:05:02 A.M. | H.R. 3765 |
Considered by unanimous consent. H.R. 3765 — “To extend the payroll tax holiday, unemployment compensation, Medicare physician payment, provide for the consideration of the Keystone XL pipeline, and for other purposes.” |
{Begin Original] In the last few weeks, the House wrote a bill that will extend the Payroll Tax break through 2012. It was approved last Tuesday, December 13. The major points are provided below (via The Associated Press.) The bill and the details are short.
As dictated by our laws, this bill was sent to the Senate for approval. The Senate made very minor changes – you can read what they are in the list below. In summary, the Senate bill extends unemployment only for two months rather than through 2012. It is changed to be a temporary fix, rather than making the change for the full year. The other compromise was how the bill is paid for – the Senate version saves us money by passing the cost of the payroll tax reduction by charging a fraction of a percent more for mortgages – the House bill cost much more ($180 billion vs $33 billion) and generated what money it did through Federal pay freezes. There are NO OTHER DIFFERENCES between the House and Senate bills. They both accomplish the purpose of the bill – to extend the payroll tax break.
The Senate approved the amended, cheaper, temporary bill by a wide, bipartisan margin, 89-10. Most Republican Senators voted in favor of the bill. Because the bill was reworked to facilitate compromise, the House has to vote again for it to be sent to the President to become law. This is typical procedure – bills are frequently modified in minor ways and it used to be routine that the House would vote again with a count identical to the original.
Not with our current lawmakers. Instead, the House sent the bill to conference – which it can do to try and create compromise wording that allows both chambers to pass the bill – but this is usually saved for when significant changes are made when a bill moves from one group to the other. In this case, there is no significant difference so it’s unclear what should happen in conference.
No, this is just a way for the Tea Party to obstruct the normal actions of our government. After the holidays, they assume this will be forgotten, the Payroll Tax will go back up, the GOP will sponsor a bill that cuts it back to where it was and it will pass through both chambers of Congress – just like this one should have. But the Tea Party assumes we, the public will forget about this and we will blame the Dems for raising taxes, and reward the Republicans for cutting taxes. Many Senate Republicans are tired of this constant charade. Here is Senator John McCain publicly claiming these silly antics are harming the Republican party – and the American people’s faith in government.
This childish story you hear Republicans say that “every child in the US knows these bills go to conference…” is silly garbage. This is a procedural trick to point a finger at the Democrat majority Senate. Listen to this very fair interview with Representative Dreier as he tries to defend his party’s actions. It makes me cringe to know this is a powerful member of our government saying these things. Listen to him try to defend the indefensible.
Our government is broken and it’s broken by smallish factions who care more for their own agendas than for doing the work we elect them to do. It’s past time to run them out and start over with new honest people.
Here are the details from the Associated Press. And here is my Representative Labrador (and Tea Partyer) playing politics and generally making an arse of himself.
The Associated Press Highlights of legislation renewing payroll tax cuts, jobless benefits approved by the House and Senate:
House bill, approved last Tuesday:
-Price tag over $180 billion.
-Keeps this year’s 4.2 percent Social Security payroll tax rate paid by 160 million workers through the end of 2012, instead of rising to 6.2 percent on Jan. 1.
-Extends expiring benefits for the long-term jobless through 2012, but at a maximum of 79 weeks coverage, less in some cases, which is well below this year’s 99-week limit. Revamps program to require beneficiaries without high school diplomas to seek an equivalent degree; lets states test applicants for illegal drug use.
-Prevents 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors for 2012.-Blocks Obama administration rule curbing pollution from industrial boilers; extends tax break for businesses buying equipment for 2012.-Requires President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline within 60 days unless he declares the project would not serve the national interest.
-Paid for by extending current pay freeze on civilian federal workers another year through 2013 and requires them to contribute more toward their pensions; raises fee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge for insuring mortgages; raises Medicare premiums paid by higher-income elderly; cuts some health care overhaul law programs; sells part of broadcast spectrum; prevents illegal immigrant parents from collecting child tax credit refund checks; bars food stamps, unemployment benefits for the wealthy.
The Senate bill, approved Saturday:
-Price tag $33 billion.
-Extends 2-percentage-point cut in Social Security payroll tax through Feb. 29.
-Renews benefits for the long-term unemployed at current levels through Feb. 29, no other changes in program.
-Prevents 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors; extends other health care fees through Feb. 29.
-Same provision on Keystone as House.
-Paid for by increasing home loan guarantee fees charged to mortgage lenders by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration by one-tenth of 1 percentage point. The fee is passed on to home buyers and will apply to many new purchases and refinancings starting Jan. 1. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/20/2554691/comparison-of-house-senate-payroll.html#storylink=cpy
This man knows how to pick a fight.
Keith Olbermann Takes On The 12th Richest Man In The World
If you watch this, you will probably learn something but with that, you will also see why Keith Olbermann is often held up for ridicule. That is the way people are treated when they won’t give in. If a person is willing to stand up to power, whether right or wrong, that person is attacked in order to discredit the claims made. It’s an effective strategy because many who tilt at windmills are outside the mainstream for good reason – they are irrational – and it’s damaging to conjure up those reminders when tearing down an opponent. But Olbermann has bone fide. He’s a smart guy with a record to prove it. He’s an excellent orator. He might not be someone you agree with but he’s worth a listen. You can decide for yourself but next time someone judges him or someone else that you know who has a record of success in any field, investigate before you accept the claim.
Lecture Capture on the Cheap – Part 2.
Another successful lecture experience
This is the second part of my post on lecture capture. You can find part 1 in the previous blog entry.
After a week in class, my lecture capture bugs have been worked out. I wanted to give it some time because things rarely go smoothly and they didn’t here, either. I discovered some elements were not in place and I’ll share what I’ve learned.
For me, the biggest factor was finding a good microphone. Screen capture is not an issue, there is a killer app for that. Camtasia Studio is a software package that has been around a few years – it does the screen capture well, and will sync a voice over that. The software is sold by Techsmith and they are a company committed to selling products in the education space. They have a collection of how-to helps and videos. Even more impressive, if you shoot them an email, you get a personal response right back, often complete with personal praise for the way you are using their product. Techsmith is a great resource and there is no software I know that competes with Camtasia.
I simply installed Camtasia on the machine in the lecture hall and use their “recorder” feature to capture everything on the screen. But I am a very active lecturer and I run up and down stairs, talk to students, quiz them, throw things at them when they drift off – anything but stand at a podium by the mic and click through lecture slides. A stationary mic at the lecture podium is the traditional way but that doesn’t work for me. Many large lecture halls will include a “portable mic” but that doesn’t work either – it doesn’t show up as an input to the computer since they are sold as microphones that plug into an amplifier that is separate from the machine. Another option used by some is a video camera setup somewhere in the hall that captures the lecturer and the screen. I wasn’t going to just set up a video camera and hope it collects most of what I want students to see on video – that never looks good to me. I also tried using my LiveScribe pen to record audio as I worked the room and while that works, the editing is time-consuming. That’s a method suggested by the good folk at Techsmith – record the audio as a separate track and then lay it in – but I’ve got many other hats to wear besides my classes and I’ve got students knocking at my door nonstop. I needed a faster way.
What worked for me was to find a great microphone solution that moves with me. Bluetooth seems like a good solution for many – but with a range that starts to falter at 20 feet (they advertise 30 feet, so it is worth a try in a small room), my room is much too large for that answer. A technology called DECT is new in the US market and I found a solution offered by Plantronics that works well. I wear the mic around my ear like a typical Bluetooth earpiece and plug-in a dongle at a USB port on my base computer (or laptop.) I set my computer up (via the control panel) to see the Plantronics mic as the main input source but also check the box that records system sounds so I can capture videos I run in lecture and the different demos I pull up. I open the Camtasia screen capture recorder, push record and I am good to go. The sound is great and everything on the screen is captured. The microphone is a bit too directional (to cut down on background noise) so I have to remember to repeat student questions or else they will not be heard clearly. Other than that, the recording is good.
The next hurdle is saving the lecture. This gave me serious problems the first two days. My lecture room is over scheduled – it is used at 8:30 am and is filled every hour until 4:30. Our classes run 50 minutes so in a perfect world, we have 10 minutes to get out of the lecture room and a new class and teacher comes in. I felt extremely pressured to get the lecture video processed and saved in my “fair five minutes.” In fact, it didn’t work at all and it took me two tries each on those first two days of class, with a 50% failure rate.
The solution came by adding more RAM to the machine. All lecture hall computers are stocked with 2 GB RAM – not enough for this application. When our IT agreed to add another 2 Gb it completely solved my problem. I put my lecture resources on to the desktop before I begin, clearing off my thumbdrive as much as possible. So when the lecture is over, I click on the “stop” button on Camtasia recorder, and processing begins immediately. With 4 Gb of RAM, this takes under 1 minute for my 50 minute lecture – typically around 750,000 Mb -1 Gb of data. I then save this to my thumbdrive, pull it out and walk off, all in under 3 minutes. I have another option of saving to what we call our “shared drive.” I can then access this from my office machine but so far, I’m using the thumbdrive.
When I get back to my office, I fire up Camtasia and pull in the lecture file. I do some quick edits – mostly to make sure the material of interest is as large as possible. I then do a little bit of audio editing. I’m a very loud lecturer – it helps with engagement in a large hall – so I have to even out my loudness a bit. But on average, editing takes under an hour – and often under 30 minutes. I’m not trying to make this a professional product. I would spend much more time on this if I was. I’m trying to provide my students with more resources they will use to learn chemistry. I’m not sloppy but I’m not investing time in dressing it up – which I could. And perhaps I will, come summer. I have a business where I create and sell problem-solving videos that are packaged with popular college textbooks for college. Those videos are very tightly edited and I invest time in the way they look. I don’t do that with my lecture videos. Not yet, anyway.
I use a mix of techniques in every “lecture” I give and most of it comes through the computer. Videos, sound files, photos, Flash demos, etc. The exception is working problems or sketching diagrams or helping students along with notes – I find doing my own writing during a classroom session is an important part of engaging the students. To do this, I pause the screen capture and switch to using my LiveScribe pen. This is a tool that records my voice in sync with a process that captures my writing in real-time. This goes on an overhead camera that bypasses the computer. The output of the pen is a file that can be viewed as a pdf document that plays back my voice over my writing as it appears as a video on-screen. It’s a bit of tech magic that works very well. The problem so far is that it doesn’t edit in to the Camtasia package, so this will be a standalone file I send with the video lecture. I hope to solve that problem in the near future. Help me please Techsmith!
But for now, students have a way to check their notes, to fill in the blanks when they must miss class and to simply “go to the source” for any questions that arise. One thing I notice, however, is the amount of time I spend engaged with the students on specific issues. I encourage questions and in a large lecture hall, it takes commitment to create a space where students feel comfortable asking. And ask they do – which comes across as “dead time” during a lecture recording. I’m not yet sure this is the final product. As always, the proof is in the usage. I’ll try putting in a few lectures where I “stick to the material,” making it shorter and I hope, sweeter. We’ll have to wait and see what gets used most.
Lecture Capture on the Cheap – Part 1.
Are we asleep yet?
I keep seeing those stats on the low viewer numbers for the lectures put online by UC – Berkeley and MIT, the stats that show us that people will prefer to spend buckets of money for tuition even when they can get the same for free by watching the lectures on Youtube or downloading to their iPhone. Nobody is watching those videos.
That may be right about the general public but I’ll wager heavily the students in the classes are watching.
I started making problem solving videos for my chemistry classes 8 years ago. I purchased the first version of the Sony Vaio because they (supposedly) offered breakthrough technology that made video creation a snap.
Ha! Creation was cumbersome and slow but I found that when I got something up online, numbers greater than 85% accessed the videos for help. My school (University of Idaho) has always offered great internet access – I know, Idaho? It’s in the sticks. But check out the facts, Yahoo put us in the top five for educational access when they started measuring these things in the dark ages. Even though access was slow relative to today, students put in the time to download these videos and use them. I learned their value as instructional tools back then and I am even more confident they are useful tools today. Not so much as the primary means for providing content but as a super source of notes, or to fill in blanks or to provide feedback after practicing alone. That is the real proof – do students use a resource. But I’ve also tracked performance in class and students achieve better scores when I can provide more resources. For example, I’ve done experiments where I offer a homework assignment that serves as a pretest. In one case I provide video that walks viewers through each problem step by step and in the other case, the students are left on their own. I then give the two groups an exam over the same learning objectives and the video group has performed 22% better. That’s significant. I haven’t been able to tease out whether the important factor is the video or simply providing more resources but the simple answer is clear, the more resources, the better. It might be that the students do the work with video and without, they rely on a friend to feed them answers. I’m not sure of the reasons yet.
So this year I am committed to putting all of my lectures online, which takes us back to the beginning of this post. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time and I am crazy jealous of the Berkeleys and MITs that can do it. Faculty at each of those schools call the IT department on Tuesday and a camera crew shows up on Wednesday to record the whole thing. That is the way it should happen – tuition is high at those places, they can do it. But the state of California is broke providing such great service and few schools have the endowment of MIT. It’s not scalable practice in this educational climate. If I were to call and make that request, I would hear nothing but laughter or crickets. Our classroom media support are really great – all three of them for our 14,000 students. If I have a crisis in my classroom, they are there within a snap of my fingers. But there are not enough people or money to capture my lecture, so I had to wait until it is totally do it yourself. I think I’ve discovered a way to do this that is affordable to all and in the next post, I’ll provide details. See you then.
What can a student expect from my introductory chemistry course for non-majors?
Chuck doesn't need to know chemistry. But you are not Chuck Norris.
Among other duties, I teach large lecture classes of introductory chemistry at a land grant research university. The course I have “earned” (by generating the fewest number of student complaints, I am sure) is the course for non-science majors. It serves as a general science core course in our curriculum. Every graduate of my university must take at least two science courses, one of which requires a lab. This list includes courses such as the ubiquitous Astronomy and Geology courses and the less common Environmental Science. The first two are well-known in the US system and strive to create an exposure to scientific method and are relatively low-stakes courses. The Environmental Science course awards enrolled students significant points towards their total grades for attendance. That also makes the course pretty low-stakes. These courses can be difficult to compete with for student enrollment who are not highly motivated to work hard and actually learn college level material – which is the case for many students fulfilling university general requirements. I am happy to say enrollment in my course is growing fast – so fast, a second large lecture had to be added this year.
I’ve grown enrollment without lowering standards. Instead, I lower the stakes in this course by enhancing student learning success by adding lots of learning value – I’ll start to address how I do that in following posts. For now, here is the breakdown for student performance. It’s always lack of effort that creates an F grade in my class but on the other end, standards for A or B grades are fairly similar to the Chemistry course for science majors. I’ve never really understood how to relax learning standards and objectives of one course level over another for different student populations. To me, it’s all chemistry and a student either learns to do chemistry or she doesn’t, so a student who earns an A grade in Chem 101 would probably get an A or B in Chem 111. It’s the same basic material but mastery demands are flexible. Every semester, I am most proud of the number of students who decide to take the Chemistry course for majors after demonstrating they can succeed and learn chemistry in my Chem 101 course. That’s a significant measure because we do not grant credit for both courses. Those who move into the Chem 111 course from Chem 101 do so for their own benefit. The university gives no reward and actually penalizes for taking this sequence. It’s a challenge for students but many do earn A and B grades. By far, the largest number of students in Chem 101 earn C grades.
So – easy to pass the course if you do the work but challenging to earn an A. Usually C grades are most abundant. That’s my philosophy for a college introductory chemistry course for non-majors.
Does the content level preparation of high school teachers matter?
Yes, it does, at least for High School Chemistry.
[note: I recently added more data to this study and reworked my stats. The average GPAs quoted in this study are barely changed and analysis shows that the average differences are significant to greater than 0.99 confidence level. I expected I would need much more data to reach this conclusion but with differences in GPA that large, the effect is real. I will continue to add data but I do not expect any changes, other than the differences will probably grow.]
The following graphic is a copy of a brochure that describes preliminary results of a study undertaken at UI in my Chem 101 – Introductory Chemistry course. The study tracked student performance of students who had previously taken a chemistry course in the state of Idaho while in High School. The state of Idaho has a majority of rural school districts. It’s challenging to find highly qualified teachers in STEM fields. In order to staff the positions in rural districts, Idaho has relatively light educational requirements in chemistry and physics. For example, the majority of Idaho teachers deemed “highly qualified” to teach chemistry have an endorsement in Physical Science or in Natural Science. These two endorsements value a broad teacher preparation over content specialization and the result is that a chemistry teacher can teach with as little as eight college semester hours of chemistry and in some cases, as few as four. The study described below was undertaken to discover the effect of this reduced teacher content preparation on student success in college.
Click on the image to increase the size to a more readable format. The brochure is meant to read in columns across the page. There are two individual pages to enlarge – top and bottom.
Posted in Chemistry, Education, Learning expectations, politics, Teaching
Tagged Education, Idaho, policy, Qualification, teacher certification, teacher training
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